At least, that’s how we hope it turns out.

Roads and Maritime Services has made no secret of the fact that the highway upgrade is going to be a long, slow process.

And motorists have been left in no doubt that they should expect significant delays during peak work periods.

But that’s not to say Bathurst and Kelso residents should be angry about the work. Quite the opposite, in fact: we should all warmly welcome it.

The Great Western Highway remains the key route linking Sydney and the west of the state yet, in too many sections, it is little more than a glorified goat track.

There are too many single lanes and too many 60km/h and 70km/h sections for the highway to come anywhere close to the sort of link to Sydney that the people and businesses of Bathurst, Orange, Dubbo and further west deserve.

The example of Lawson shows just what can be done with a bit of determination from our state’s roads planners.

For decades the Blue Mountains town was gridlocked every holiday and long weekend as people escaped the city for a few days.

And for almost just as long, locals there were told they would simply have to put up with the inconvenience as widening the highway was simply going to be too difficult and too costly.

But look at Lawson now.

It took years to get the job done properly and locals must have wondered if the work would ever finish, but now traffic flows without a worry.

That’s good news for motorists, and good news for Lawson.

The completion of the highway work at Kelso should also allow Bathurst Regional Council to have a real crack at beautifying the eastern entrance to the city to show Bathurst off as the warm, cosmopolitan city we know it to be.

As a shampoo commercial once told us: it won’t happen overnight, but it will happen. We just have to be patient.